Response to MMORPG Question About Unity

[Istaria CS]

From the MMORPG Interview:
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/s...1448/gameID/17

MMORPG: What about the Unity Server? What are you doing for the European players?

Rick Simmons: We haven't forgotten about Unity players. There should be no doubt that we would like to see Unity players brought over. Three points: From a business perspective, what company wouldn't want to bring in many passionate, dedicated customers who are likely to sign up as long term subscribers? We'd love to have those customers. From a game perspective, Unity players are passionate. It's been a while, but they still haven't given up - some of the players have even posted YouTube? videos from Unity days - that's awesome. We'd love to have that intensity and vibrant energy become part of the Order or Chaos shards. From a technical perspective, the process of moving the characters over is similar to a character move, but there's some database issues related to character data and account mappings, and how we transfer those characters over properly.

Bringing over the Unity characters is not a simple thing to do. Like most things of this importance, it's a very serious job that must be done pretty close to perfect. I can only imagine the fallout that would occur if we brought the Unity characters over, but mapped them to the wrong accounts or lost data because of some differences in the way plots are associated to accounts in the Unity database. Even worse, if we put an Ancient Dragon head on top of a petite female Fiend - let's just say we understand the gravity of our work. If we're going to do this, we need to do it right. That will take time while we figure out the best approach (or approaches) and put together a solid plan. When we know what we're going to do and how we're going to do it, we'll be able to talk with players about moving Unity characters to a new home.

[Shur]

Even worse, if we put an Ancient Dragon head on top of a petite female Fiend

that would be almost unbearably sexy. go for it

;p

[Dhalin]

Its nice to see that Mr. Simmons has a good sense of humor! *grins*

But yeah, I know that Unity players have been itching to play for a long time, but he does have a point, some things are better waiting for. Look on the bright side, Unity: When you DO come back, the game you will come back to will be vastly better than the one you left, right?

From what I understand, and ready, Unity was... many deltas behind the other two servers, was it not?

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

From what I understand, and ready, Unity was... many deltas behind the other two servers, was it not?

From what I read it was more of an issue with making the account character data mesh with either Chaos or Order. The difference in deltas shouldn't matter, it just takes time to sort out any inconsistencies and ensure cranial-torsodal data integrity.

[Vahrokh]

Now, the good side is that it looks like we WILL be saved (and this makes me very happy). The bad side is that this interview tone (including what said in the questions before this answer) looks like that there's a fairly long list of things with higher priority, and even then, the import process will be pretty long. Makes me wonder if 6 months will be enough.

[Istaria CS]

Just checked with the boss for a time-line and he says, "if there is a bunch of Unity players out there who are ready to sign up if they can have their characters back - and I think there are - making a new home for them is an important thing to do. We're going to make it happen as soon as possible - I just don't want to make a mistake that brings in a 1000 EU players and sees 999 of them leave because we borked the job. That would be a whole lot of wasted effort and really - wasted potential for Horizons."

Horizons CS

[Tarot]

It would be hard to loose all stored formes on my plot, but not all are not recoverable. Pevil what do you mean about a hunting party with meara, nesa and you on Chaos (maybe Aleriana will come to help too .. i really miss those hours killing Beetles on Fire Island ^^)

[pevil2000]

hehe a hunting party would indeed be good... specially with you guys back! Salama and Nagafyn too, Sprit will hopefully return.... ahhhh that would be great. *wingwaves to Nesa btw*

Perhaps the unrecoverable forms could be given back to those characters who had already got them... would save them disappearing completely if Chaos/Order people who own them stop playing, but still keep them fairly rare.

[Tarot]

*wingwave back from Nesa and from our cute little hatchi (it was born on 07.07.07 )

Most not recoverable Forms stored are from events and were those i couldnt scribe until then (Tarot was not really fast with craftig ). Chaos would be definitely my choice.

[fireblade]

anything new on this yet?

[Spirit]

For me the majority of time invested was in the dragonsl levels... I'm really not bothered about vault/inv contents now.

However it would be nice to at least have my money and hoard intact! And my scales.. ... and my claws. Everything infact that is Me... the vault isn't me it's in a bank.

Rakku

[tramsan]

I regularly chopped off my own limbs, stuffed them in the vault and regenerated them. I want my vault contents!

[Spirit]

Only you tramsan.. ... lol.. *sigh*

Rakku

[Antonath]

I want my vault back! It's my safe deposit box, where I keep all the stuff I want to keep long-term. I've got halloween masks and costumes as well as the sweets to use them, stuff from my Rite of Passage, my hatchie-quest scales, a "uniform" from my guild... I really don't want to lose all that

Money can be earned, hoard can be... erm, hoarded, but that sort of item is irreplaceable.

Antonath

[Ssajit]

From the MMORPG Interview:

I can only imagine the fallout that would occur if we brought the Unity characters over, but mapped them to the wrong accounts...

Isnt it possible to give players the ability to transfer their chars to accounts they desire?

This is just a suggestion that i dont know if is possible but i m sure if everyobody would give their own suggestion, the game staff might find something useful to aid them.

There are many players that have knowledge to work with databases and adress problems related to them. so why not post a list of issues somewhere and see what players come up with to solve them?

*hopes he makes sense*